Florus on the Germanic wars

The Roman
author Publius
Annius Florus published his Epitome
of Titus Livy in the second half of the reign of the emperor Hadrian
(117-138). This little book contained more than an excerpt from Livy's
History
of Rome since its foundation: Florus added descriptions of the
wars
conducted during the Roman empire. It also offered a description of the
Germanic wars, which was partly based on Livy, and partly on an
unidentified
source written between 17 and 40. Section 2.30 is presented here in the
translation by E.S. Forster.

It could be wished that Caesar [1]
had not set such
store on conquering Germany also. Its loss was a disgrace which far
outweighed
the glory of its acquisition. But since he was well aware that his
father, Gaius
[Julius] Caesar, had twice crossed the Rhine
by bridging it [2] and sought
hostilities against Germania,
he had conceived the desire of making it into a province
to do him honor. His object would have been achieved if the barbarians
could have tolerated our vices as well as they tolerated our rule.

Edge of Empire. The book Arjen Bosman and I wrote about Rome's Lower Rhine Frontier (order; review)

Drusus
was
sent into the province and conquered the Usipetes first, and then
overran
the territory of the Tencteri and Chatti. He erected, by way of a
trophy,
a high mound adorned with the spoils and decorations of the Marcomanni.
Next he attacked simultaneously those powerful tribes, the Cherusci,
Suebi
and Sugambri [3], who had begun
hostilities after crucifying
twenty of our centurions, an act which served as an oath binding them
together,
and with such confidence of victory that they made an agreement in
anticipation
for dividing the spoils. The Cherusci had chosen the horses, the Suebi
the gold and silver, the Sugambri the captives. Everything, however,
turned
out contrariwise; for Drusus, after defeating them, divided up their
horses,
their herds, their necklets and their own persons as spoil and sold
them.

Furthermore, to secure the province he posted garrisons and guardposts
all along the Meuse, Elbe and Weser. Along the banks of the Rhine he
disposed
more than five hundred forts.[4] He
built bridges at Bonna
and Gesoriacum [5], and left fleets
to protect them. He
opened a way through the Hercynian forest [6],
which had
never before been visited or traversed. In a word, there was such peace
in Germania that the inhabitants seemed changed, the face of the
country
transformed, and the very climate milder and softer than it used to be.
Lastly, when the gallant young general had died there [7],
the Senate
itself; not from flattery but as an acknowledgment of his merit, did
him
the unparalleled honor of bestowing upon him a surname derived from the
name of province [8].

But it is more difficult to retain than to create
provinces; they are
won by force, they are secured by justice. Therefore our joy was
short-lived;
for the Germans had been defeated rather than subdued, and under the
rule
of Drusus they respected our moral qualities rather than our arms.
After
his death they began to detest the licentiousness and pride not less
than
the cruelty of Quinctilius
Varus. He had the temerity to hold an assembly and had issued
an edict
against the Chatti, just as though he could restrain the violence of
barbarians
by the rod of a lictor
and the proclamation of a herald.

But the Germans, who had long been regretting that their
swords were
rusted and their horses idle, as soon as they saw the toga and
experienced
laws more cruel than arms, snatched up their weapons under the
leadership
of Arminius. Meanwhile Varus was so confident of peace that he was
quite
unperturbed even when the conspiracy was betrayed to him by Segestes,
one
of the chiefs. And so when he was unprepared and had no fear of any
such
thing, at a moment when -such was his confidence- he was
actually
summoning them to appear before his tribunal, they rose and attacked
him
from all sides.

Varus

His camp was seized, and three legions were overwhelmed, Varus met
disaster by the same fate and with the same courage as Paulus on the
fatal
day of Cannae [9]. Never was there
slaughter more cruel
than took place there in the marshes and woods, never were more
intolerable
insults inflicted by barbarians, especially those directed against the
legal pleaders. They put out the eyes of some of them and cut off the
hands
of others; they sewed up the mouth of one of them after first cutting
out
his tongue, which one of the barbarians held in his hand, exclaiming
"At
last, you viper, you have ceased to hiss."

The body too of the consul
[10] himself, which the dutiful
affection of the soldiers
had buried, was disinterred.

As for the standards and eagles, the barbarians possess two to this
day; the third eagle was wrenched from its hole, before it could fall
into
the hands of the enemy, by the standard-bearer, who, carrying it
concealed
in the folds round his belt, secreted himself in the blood-stained
marsh
[11]. The result of this disaster
was that the empire,
which had not stopped on the shores of the Ocean, was checked on the
banks
of the Rhine.

Note 2:
Caesar's bridges across the Rhine, in 55 and 53 BCE, were well-known
pieces of engineering (text).

Note 3:
This happened in 12 BCE.

Note 4:
An exaggeration, but several forts along the Rhine seem to date back
to the age of Drusus.

Note 5:
The manuscripts give Borma, which makes no sense
and must be
restored as Bonna (modern Bonn). Gesoriacum is modern Boulogne, and one
wonders what kind of bridge is meant, although Mogontiacum
(Mainz) is a possible emendation (proposed by Bill
Thayer).

Note 6:
The Black Forest.

Note 7:
In 9 BCE.

Note 8:
I.e., Germanicus.

Note 9:
This consul had committed suicide after the battle of Cannae, where Hannibal
had defeated the Romans in 216 BCE.

Note 10:
In fact, Varus was a former consul (consularis).

Note 11:
In fact, it was captured by the Germans and kept by the Chauci. It
was recovered in 41 by the Roman general Aulus Gabinius Secundus.